The Dewar’s owner is trailing the use of a robotic sensing kit, resembling a dog, at its John Dewar & Sons maturation site near Glasgow.

The kit is developed by the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) at its Digital Process Manufacturing Centre (DPMC) in Irvine, supported by the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI).

“Craftmanship and heritage remains at the heart of our production of Dewar’s Blended Scotch whisky and our portfolio of single malts, but there is also great potential for innovation and technology to support the industry to become more efficient and data-driven. We’re proud to be playing our part to pioneer this new technology in the whisky industry and look forward to progressing from these trials to developing a live system that can be used at our sites in the future,” said Angus Holmes, whisky category director at Bacardi.

The system uses a sensor, held by a 3D-printed arm created by NMIS engineers, to detect ethanol vapour levels as the robot follows a defined path through the warehouse. As part of the collaboration, Bacardi helped design the experiment and led baseline testing ahead of the trial.

The early-stage trial explores how autonomous inspection could be applied across multiple industries, from whisky to chemicals and energy. 

Traditional inspection of ethanol evaporation involves significant manual handling and reliance on visual cues, while robotics could offer a repeatable, data-driven alternative, although this is an early-stage proof of concept rather than a live operational system. 

The next step for the project could involve trialling the same sensor in a different type of robot, likely embedding the sensor in the robot rather than mounting it on an arm to deliver greater reliability and improved functionality.

Most recently, Bacardi added three new ageing warehouses at its 200-acre blending and maturation centre, Poniel, in southeast Glasgow, where the trial has taken place.

“Our aim here is to validate our own sensing kit and see whether robots can take on this type of inspection work. The early results are promising, and it shows how manufacturing technologies being developed in Scotland are relevant across many sectors including the whisky industry. It’s been fantastic to work with Bacardi on this – a great example of a company embracing and contributing to innovative new approaches for the industry,” added Andrew Hamilton, head of the DPMC.